An anatomy of the academic ranking of world universities (Shanghai ranking) (original) (raw)
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Highly Cited Researchers and the Shanghai ranking
The emergence of university academic rankings within and across national education systems is a significant phenomenon in the field of comparative analysis of higher education. The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU or Shanghai ranking) has become influential in the media, education policy communities and among potential students, but nevertheless many critics are reluctant to use it as a source of analysis and improvement. This reluctance has rested in part on the view that its results are irreproducible. Now that we have found how to replicate the results of the ranking, we are in a position to shed light on the role of the various Shanghai ranking indicators in contributing to claims about comparative performance of universities and entire Higher Education systems. In this technical note, we present background information on the highly cited researcher indicator to help stakeholders understand more about the dynamics of the Shanghai ranking.
Reproducibility of the Shanghai academic ranking of world universities results
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This paper discusses and copes with the difficulties that arise when trying to reproduce the results of the Shanghai ranking of world universities. Although the methodology of the ranking is a little ambiguous with regard to absolute (not relative to the best performer) scores on the six indicators that compose the ranking, the paper shows how to develop procedures to compute raw results and final relative scores. Discrepancies between estimated scores and the results of the Shanghai ranking are mostly associated with the difficulties encountered in the identification of institutional affiliations, and are not significant. We can safely state that the results of the Shanghai ranking are in fact reproducible.
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Since the turn of the millennium, the People's Republic of China has become an increasingly significant force in the global system of science. This is, not least, reflected in the countries stellar rise in international academic league tables, including in university rankings. China is home to what is considered the prototype of all prominent contemporary university rankings, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (aka "Shanghai Ranking"). In all other prominent rankings, the country's elite universities also continuously improve their overall status, on average, by several places each year. China's approach to and its success in international university rankings is thus an interesting case for a study of the local emergence of this institution as well as of the global diffusion and clashes of norms involved. Different from the existing literature, which usually studies university rankings in China as some type of global isomorphism, this article analyzes the phenomenon in stronger relation to its wider societal context. To look at the social environment of rankings will add nuance and allow for a better understanding of what determines Chinese universities' participation in global rankings, we contend. Our main argument is that the emergence and utilization of university rankings in China should be seen as an organic part of the state's top-down science, technology, and innovation policies, not merely as a measurement tool for international comparison in the higher education sector. Furthermore, the strong tradition of performance quantification and rating as a tool of governance may also explain why the global practice of university rankings seems to be embraced more seamlessly and with less controversy overall than in many other places in the world, while at the same time rankings exhibit their very own dynamics and impacts in China. Finally, we also discuss how recent domestic policy changes may herald some challenges for the current practice and meaning of university rankings in China-and potentially beyond.
Global university rankings uncovered: introduction
University rankings have gained growing attention from university administrations and faculty members, markets, governments, mass media and the public at large, affecting nearly all aspects directly or indirectly related to academia. This Theme Section includes 12 essays from 16 authors, coming from 9 countries (i.e. Singapore, the USA, the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Cyprus and Greece). These essays cover different methodological, socio-political, economical and ethical 'hot issues' emerging from the dominance of rankings in the higher education sector through the views and thoughts of different stakeholders (i.e. university administrators, people involved in performing the rankings, and scientists). We hope that this Theme Section and the questions it raises will further contribute to the recent debate and future of university rankings, whether they be global or regional, as well as help find the nexus between numbers (i.e. rankings) and knowledge (i.e. higher education institutions); to paraphrase Plato's quote 'a good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers'.
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Globalisation and Higher Education Reform
In the past two decades, higher education has been going through a dramatic change, in large part to meet the dramatic challenge of globalization. A number of theoretical orientations have been devised to explain some of these changes, including intriguing labels such as Academic Capitalism and McDonaldization. These orientations usually give excessive attention to the market as the impetus for driving institutional reform, and the greatest indicator of this change is the growing importance of global university rankings. However, scholars, politicians, and pundits have also generated widespread criticism to rankings, and in response to that criticism, alternative ranking systems have begun to be formulated. This paper explores the growing criticism to established global university rankings and the criteria developed for alternative ranking systems, including the European Commission rankings, the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT) rankings, and the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities. We ultimately ask whether these new ranking systems are improving the process or adding to the negative attention to rankings.
Reproducibility of the Academic Ranking of World University Results
This paper discusses and copes with the difficulties that arise when trying to reproduce the results of the Shanghai academic ranking of world universities. In spite of the ambiguity of the methodology of the ranking with regard to the computation of the scores on its six indicators, the paper presents a set of straightforward procedures to estimate raw results and final relative scores. Discrepancies between estimated scores and the results of the ranking are mostly associated with the difficulties encountered in the identification of institutional affiliations, and are not significant. We can safely state that the results of the Shanghai academic ranking of world universities are in fact reproducible.
The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, 2017
Recently, many universities have drawn attention to world university rankings, which reflect the international competition of universities and represent their relative statuses. This study does not radically contradict all types of global university rankings but calls for an examination of the effects of their indicators on the final ranking of universities. By using regression analysis, this study investigates the indicator contribution to the ranking of universities in world university ranking systems including the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Times Higher Education ( THE ), and QS World University Rankings. Results showed that in the ARWU system, three indicators regarding faculty members who won Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals and papers published in Nature and Science and in the Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index journals predicted the ranking of universities. For the QS and THE systems, the more powerful contributors to the ranking of uni...
To Rank or To Be Ranked: The Impact of Global Rankings in Higher Education
Journal of Studies in International Education, 2007
Global university rankings have cemented the notion of a world university market arranged in a single "league table" for comparative purposes and have given a powerful impetus to intranational and international competitive pressures in the sector. Both the research rankings by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the composite rankings by the Times Higher Education Supplement have been widely publicised and already appear to have generated incentives in favour of greater system stratification and the concentration of elite researchers. However, global comparisons are possible only in relation to one model of institution, that of the comprehensive research intensive university, and for the most part are tailored to science-strong and Englishspeaking universities. Neither the Shanghai nor the Times rankings provide guidance on the quality of teaching. It is important to secure "clean" rankings, transparent, free of self-interest, and methodologically coherent, that create incentives to broadbased improvement.